Ex-PM’s charity fund will finance new technological university in Tbilisi

The Cartu Charity Foundation - a charity fund established and financed by Georgian tycoon and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili will finance the building of a new university in Tbilisi.

The Cartu Charity Foundation Board Chairman Nikoloz Chkhetiani said it would be a large-scale project and would take "a couple of years” to implement.

The new university would have a technological focus, Chkhetiani said.

"We have met with representatives of various international universities. The university will be built in Tbilisi as, judging from infrastructural and territorial aspects, it is the most suitable place for such large projects. The project will take a couple of years, as it will be calculated on a large number of students and will include the construction of a university campus.”

Meanwhile, the building meant for the Technological University in Batumi will be put up for auction, the country’s Economy Ministry said.

Opening an international Technological University in Batumi was the idea of Georgia’s former President Mikheil Saakashvili. Today however Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said the university would now be built in Tbilisi and funded by Cartu, and the new initiative would be "ten to 20 times better than Saakashvili’s intended project” in Batumi.

Deputy Education Minister Gia Shervashidze believed the Batumi building was not a suitable facility for a university.

"How can a building, which in the beginning was meant for a business centre, turn into a university?” he asked, adding university buildings needed to meet "very concrete standards”.

Meanwhile, PM Garibashvili said further details about the Cartu Technological University project would be released by the Cartu Foundation in the "near future”.